The script below combines real C1 writing responses analyzed alongside C2-passed consultants against official Cambridge criteria, illustrating common C1 error patterns in one comprehensive piece. We created this analysis because talking about Writing mistakes in the abstract, "watch your organisation," "develop your ideas more," rarely tells anyone what that actually looks like on the page.
The task was a standard CAE Part 1 essay: candidates read two short opposing viewpoints on whether social media has done more harm than good to society, and had to write an essay of 220 to 260 words giving their own view, addressing both given points plus one of their own.
The script, as submitted
Nowadays, social media is very important in our society and it has changed a lot of things in the way people communicate with each other. Some people think that it has more advantages than disadvantages, but other people disagree with this opinion. In this essay I am going to talk about this topic and give my opinion about it.
Firstly, social media has made communication easier. People can talk with their friends and family who live far away, and this is very good for keeping relationships. Also, since I have social media, I can see what my friends are doing every day, which is nice.
On the other hand, social media can be bad for people's mental health. Studies show that young people who use social media a lot are more anxious and depressed. Despite this is a real problem, many companies don't do anything about it because they want people to spend more time on their apps.
Another point is that social media can spread false information very easily, and this is dangerous for society because people believe things that aren't true.
In conclusion, I think social media has both advantages and disadvantages, and it depends on how people use it. It is important to use it carefully.
Content: addressed, but thinly
The task asked for the candidate's own opinion plus engagement with both given viewpoints. Technically, all three ideas appear: communication benefits, mental health harm, misinformation. That's the problem with judging Content on presence alone. Each idea gets one example at most, and two of the three paragraphs never go beyond a general claim.
"People can talk with their friends and family who live far away" is true of every messaging app since roughly 2005. It's not wrong, but it doesn't show engagement with the specific question of social media's overall effect on society, which is what separates a Content score that clears the bar from one that's merely present. The false information paragraph is worse: one sentence, no example, no development at all. An examiner reading this isn't checking whether an idea was mentioned. They're checking whether the candidate actually had something to say about it.
About this script
This composite reflects a pattern we see often at the C1 level rather than one specific candidate's performance. Scripts with genuinely strong grammar frequently lose marks on Content and Communicative Achievement for exactly this reason: every point is present, but none of them are developed past a single general sentence.
Communicative Achievement: the register problem nobody flags
This is where the script loses the most, and it's rarely the first thing a candidate notices when rereading their own work. "Which is nice" and "this is very good for keeping relationships" are conversational phrases. CAE Part 1 essays are meant to be written in a fairly formal, objective register, the kind of tone appropriate for a general reader, not a diary entry.
It isn't one bad phrase. It's a pattern across the whole script: "this is nice," "which is nice," "it is important to use it carefully" as a closing line. None of these are grammatically wrong. They're just not doing the register work the task expects at C1. An essay can have accurate grammar and still read as underdeveloped in Communicative Achievement, because that criterion is judging whether the writing achieves its purpose for its intended reader, not whether the sentences are correct.
Organisation: the conclusion that isn't one
We flagged this exact pattern in a different article recently, and here it is again, almost word for word: a conclusion that restates the introduction instead of adding anything. "I think social media has both advantages and disadvantages, and it depends on how people use it" is close enough to the opening sentence that a reader could swap the two paragraphs and barely notice.
Paragraph-level structure is otherwise fine. Each idea gets its own paragraph, there's a clear topic sentence in most of them, and the essay doesn't wander off task. What's missing is a sense of build, that the essay is going somewhere rather than listing three separate points and then stopping. Linking between paragraphs is minimal too: "on the other hand" and "another point is" are functional but don't do much to connect the ideas to each other beyond signalling a new paragraph has started.
Language: real range, undermined by one repeated slip
Vocabulary here is actually solid for C1: "keeping relationships," "spread false information," "companies don't do anything about it" all show reasonable range without reaching for words the candidate clearly doesn't control. The grammar mistake that costs the most marks is a single structural error repeated in a way that suggests it isn't a slip: "Despite this is a real problem" mixes despite, which needs a noun or a gerund, with a full clause, which needs although or even though instead.
It's a small thing on paper. One wrong word. But it's exactly the kind of complex structure a C1 candidate reaches for specifically to demonstrate range, and getting it wrong in the one sentence built to showcase that range costs more than a simpler, correct sentence would have. There's also a since/for slip earlier, "since I have social media," where since needs a point in time rather than a state, similar to the private study slip we've covered before with present perfect structures.
Read your last essay against these four categories separately, not all at once. Cover everything except Content and ask only whether each paragraph says something specific. Then cover everything except Organisation and check whether your conclusion could be swapped with your introduction without anyone noticing. Marking your own work one criterion at a time, the way an examiner actually does it, catches problems a single read-through tends to miss.
Sources
The reliable source(s) we have used to write the article.